"Within the first year," Tuerff recalls, "cities were reporting increases in their recycling rates."

A few years later, Tuerff told attendees at a national conference about the state's recycling success and suggested a national event. "I left that meeting with a 3-inch stack of business cards," he says.

When Tuerff and Davis left their state jobs and started EnviroMedia, a public relations and advertising agency focused on environmental and public health issues, America Recycles Day became their first client.

Today, recycling is part of good citizenship. But there are certain questions that come up again and again.

Michael Lindner, the state's current recycling guru and a team leader at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, has answers for some common queries.

E-WASTE

Lindner encourages anyone who's got an old computer stowed away somewhere to haul it out of its hiding place and recycle it.

"In Texas, there's a law that says all computer manufacturers have to provide their customers with free and convenient recycling," Lindner explains. "Computer equipment is very recyclable and reusable. Circuit boards and microchips can be used in other electronics."

PLASTIC

Plastics recycling is hugely important, Lindner says, because plastics are made from oil, an increasingly scarce resource. Recycling 1 pound of plastic saves 385 gallons of crude oil used in the manufacturing of new plastics.

Different recycling programs have different guidelines about the plastics they'll take. Know what your center recycles and stay within its guidelines, Lindner says, so workers don't have to fish out the nonrecyclables by hand..

And then there's the issue of plastic caps - just think of the tops of all those gallons of milk. Chuck them or recycle them?

And then there's the issue of plastic caps - just think of the tops of all those gallons of milk. Chuck them or recycle them?

Recycle them. "Leave the caps on the containers when you recycle," Lindner says. "When you add all that plastic up, it's a large amount.

CARDBOARD AND PAPER

Cardboard can be recycled so long as it isn't soiled. That empty pizza box from last night? "You might be able to tear off the top and recycle it," Lindner says. But if the bottom is stained with grease, throw it away.

Recycling paper is critical because "making paper from paper takes way less energy than making paper from trees," Lindner says. More than one-third of the raw material fiber U.S. paper makers use comes from recycled paper.

GLASS

Glass, Lindner says, is unique in a couple of ways. It's safe in that you don't have to worry about it contaminating groundwater, and it's made from the most abundant natural resource: sand.

But depending on where you live, recycling glass may not be a priority.

"Glass comes in clear, green and brown," Lindner says. "They're pretty evenly divided by color. But once you get them mixed in recycling, there's only one type of glass you can make from that mix - brown. The reality is, there's only a market for about one-third of the glass that you get."

TEXAS SCORES

When it comes to recycling, Texas occupies a rare position.

"Texas is unique in that we have a lot of the end markets here," said Maia Corbitt, executive director of the State of Texas Alliance for Recycling. "We have prominent recyclers of plastic, glass and cardboard, so we have the opportunity to keep our recycling in Texas - to close the loop - as opposed to many other states, which send the majority of their recycling overseas."

Houston, for example, is home to Avangard Innovative, one of the largest international plastics recyclers in the world. In San Antonio, Corona Visions takes and disposes of e-waste, which includes computers, televisions, cell phones, fax machines and other electronics.

Recycling is more than an altruistic impulse, Corbitt says. It's a commodity.

"Plenty of people need recycled materials to make new products," she says. "China is the largest importer of our recycling by far, and China is stockpiling a lot of the precious metals in e-waste that are used by computer manufacturers and national defense systems. We need those materials here as well."

In the end, she says, the success of recycling comes down to consumer behavior and attitude.

"We are trying to shift the focus away from waste," Corbitt explains. "We want people to look at an empty shampoo bottle, or a cardboard toilet-paper roll and say, 'This is a commodity. This has value. Someone can use this to make something else.' "